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Starfleet Design Bureau

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stakenbake said:
I see it. It do patch some of (what I thought was) glaring plotholes before. It doesn't look like bullshit.

I don't trust it tho, seems like it's post sequel trilogy post hoc recounting.

What's the source?nvm, that's entirely the wrong setting for this.

I'm definitely leaning to making the Federation a ship posting you can bring your family on (like a winnebago). What are your thoughts on crew space and cargo?
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I like the Mass Effect freighter designs honestly. Modular self-contained cargo pods (with life support, often repurposed to colonial structures) strapped in bulk to a bare minimum ftl drive.

The difference is that Mass Effect is mostly a 'long trips and cryposleep, with hypergates' sort of setting. So yeah, for Star Trek, you could definitely have what's mostly living space and then trundle along with all that cargo. Though that's how I imagine a lot of Slow Warp culture really, rather than something modern.
 
I just hope the Miranda gets a neutronic fuel carrier variant (3rd class probably comes from the volume/mass of fuel it can carry), it'd certainly help the fleet train, imo.

 
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darkstarling said:
I like the Mass Effect freighter designs honestly. Modular self-contained cargo pods (with life support, often repurposed to colonial structures) strapped in bulk to a bare minimum ftl drive.

The difference is that Mass Effect is mostly a 'long trips and cryposleep, with hypergates' sort of setting. So yeah, for Star Trek, you could definitely have what's mostly living space and then trundle along with all that cargo. Though that's how I imagine a lot of Slow Warp culture really, rather than something modern.
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Could do better than canon designs:

 
We know that plenty of ships in the setting don't use Starfleet-style main deflectors, so there's absolutely other ways to go about it than a single big chunk of deflection hardware.
 
Tank man said:
I mean, the Nebula doesn't use impulse engines.
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According to Memory Alpha--
Article:
In an entry on Doug Drexler's weblog, Rick Sternbach indicated that he envisioned the ship's impulse drives as being hidden behind baffles to scatter their signature for stealth reasons. He added that "modern" Starfleet vessel impulse engines operated on little conventional rocket thrust anyways, being more of a sub-warp subspace drive.

--it has them, just not the fusion rocket part?
 
stakenbake said:
I see it. It do patch some of (what I thought was) glaring plotholes before. It doesn't look like bullshit.

I don't trust it tho, seems like it's post sequel trilogy post hoc recounting.

What's the source?nvm, that's entirely the wrong setting for this.

I'm definitely leaning to making the Federation a ship posting you can bring your family on (like a winnebago). What are your thoughts on crew space and cargo?
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Pretty sure the space winnebago equivalent is a runabout. Not sure we can manage those yet.

(Edit: got distracted). I don't think bringing family on the Federation class is a viable idea, but we can certainly manage nicer crew quarters than usual.

Also, that explaination for the Falcon Well predates the sequels... Might even predate the prequils, but I could easily be wrong about that.
 
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Chargone said:
Pretty sure the space winnebago equivalent is a runabout. Not sure we can manage those yet.

(Edit: got distracted). I don't think bringing family on the Federation class is a viable idea, but we can certainly manage nicer crew quarters than usual.

Also, that explaination for the Falcon Well predates the sequels... Might even predate the prequils, but I could easily be wrong about that.
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I do truly love a Runabout.

But yeah, we're not in the Flying Village era yet. I'd like to get more focus on that when we hit that point, since people will be living in space for years, having relationships, getting married... we need some investment in both public and private spaces if we can find it.

...Holodeck love hotel :p
 
something like "improved Crew Amenities" would be a nice option. An expanded multipurpose area that can be used for activities or hangouts (think gym/cafeteria with movable bleachers/tables/chairs) would be a nice crew thing, use it for movies, church ceremonies, etc, while also doubling as an emergency cargo/passenger/whatever space.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
We really just need to design a ship with a 100 meter saucer and two relatively small secondary hulls to ether side allowing a 12 deck large warp core to straddle the entire ship through both secondary hulls.

One hull is a flight deck hull. The other has the deflector and a big engineering section.

Then mount a large cargo pod between the secondary hulls.

Give it a pair of nacelles in cargo pod configuration.

It has speeds of warp around 6/7/7.6 (E cruise / M cruise / Max warp)

I know. Non orb warp 8 Archer feels wrong, but I feel Starfleet procurement will want to kill me 60% less than if I sent them another orb.

I think it would be a cool looking engineering ship to update the Archer concept for a warp 8 world.
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We arent designing a new Archer before the nextgen nacelles roll out in the 2270s, so warp 7+ cruise is likely, with warp 8 max cruise a small but distinct possibility
And I dont see the point of undersizing a cargo hauler and engineering ship

If I had to do it?

NEXT ARCHER(2295)
180m Federation saucer, XL variant, Rising Slope configuration, engineering hull: 270 kt
Large cargo pod: +100 kilotons
Cruise/catamaran nacelles: +20 kilotons: 12 pts
Standard covariant shields: 30.8 pts(without nacelles and cargo pod), 44.5 pts (with nacelles and cargo pod),
Large warp core: 12pts

4x Type 3 impulse thrusters: Mature: 15pts
8x type 5 phasers: Mature: 24 pts
2x type 4 torpedoes(1 forward, 1 aft): Mature: 6pts


Flight deck is transverse in the saucer instead of longitudinal, and youd want extra AM to exploit that max cruise
Then you stack the engineering modules

Thats a 390 kiloton ship(290 without pod) that costs either 54.8 pts or 68.5 points before thrusters and weapons,
99 pts or 113 pts after them but before mass production discounts,
Can do large supply runs without the pod, and is carrying a mix of phasers and shields enough to fend off a B'rel or two long enough to run

You could save 10 to 15 points of cost by going with light covariant shields, 6 pts by accepting more phaser blindspots, and another 7.5 pts by halving impulse drives but that seems like one of those penny-pinching measures thats a false economy in the light of the pattern of Archer losses during the war
 
Sayle said:
Maneuverability, of course, has always been kind of a gut feeling flirting with specific numbers, but if enemy ships have specific stats now then that needs to be defined more accurately. But I'm not sure how to articulate that. Engagement range has other connotations. Agility rating sounds a bit gamey. Have specified frigate/light cruiser/heavy cruiser/battleship brackets that sit across maneuverability ranges so a ship can be said to be designed to engage cruisers over 150kt? But what then if enemy ships also get the system and something 150kt actually flies like something 75kt? You have two stats referencing mass when one isn't actually mass. Maneuverability rating, with lower being better? That's the stuff I'm least happy about it, where solutions don't seem obvious.
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Take a page from SFB and have turn speeds or acceleration/deceleration factors, which can just be basic abstracted numbers on 'how fast can I change direction' with higher being better? However it plays into the rough behind the hood calculations.
 
I think maneuver works just fine. It's simple and conveys everything needed in one basic description.

When it comes to dodging it doesn't matter along what axis you accelerate, only how much you accelerate.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
We really just need to design a ship with a 100 meter saucer and two relatively small secondary hulls to ether side allowing a 12 deck large warp core to straddle the entire ship through both secondary hulls.
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This is sounding kinda similar to the layout I proposed for the next-gen explorer:
thepsyborg said:
Code: 
dorsal warp nacelle        (O)
dorsal engineering         _|_    FRONT VIEW
 +dorsal deflector     ___(   )___
______________________/   saucer  \______________________
\_________________________     _________________________/
ventral engineering       (_ _)
 +ventral deflector         |
ventral warp nacelle       (O)
Code: 
dorsal warp nacelle        (O)
                           _|_
dorsal engineering        /   \        FRONT VIEW
 +dorsal deflector     ___\   /___
______________________/   saucer  \______________________
\__________________________   __________________________/
ventral engineering       /   \
 +ventral deflector       \___/
                            |
ventral warp nacelle       (O)
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just, instead of dual "inline"-size deflectors like I was proposing, you scale the engineering hulls up even more till you can fit a full-size deflector in one of them and a hangar bay on the other, and then hang a cargo pod off the ass.

(given how valuable efficient cruise speed is for cargo/engineering ships, it's a crying shame you couldn't actually go vertical nacelles with the cargo pod b/c line of sight issues between the nacelles.)

edit:oh god the code blocks do not like being quoted. ok I think it's fixed now.
 
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Our weapons tech has advanced to the point I see no issue with an Archer v2 with just an orb, type5 phasers and type4 fore and aft launchers. Once we have swarms of Mirandas and a few federations it won't be as much of an issue.

Disparage the Archer all you like, but it was so valuable Starfleet forked out a premium for another tranche after the warp 8 engine came out. We could do worse than build one with a warp 8 core, v4 nacelles and better weapons.
 
Sayle is somewhat against spheres because of the sheer volume they need filled with stuff, iirc, so I think a better Archer 2.0 would probably be a modification of the next generation explorer, kinda like the Curry-type is often head-canoned as.

As well as the innate cargo/engineering spaces of the secondary hull (which for us will probably be more pronounced compared to the Excelsior) it shouldn't be too hard to fit a docking point for 1-2 large cargo pods on the underside between the nacelles. It'd also likely be substantially faster, potentially even warp 7-8 efficient cruise capable depending on design choices/how things have advanced,
 
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Cold Dust said:
Our weapons tech has advanced to the point I see no issue with an Archer v2 with just an orb, type5 phasers and type4 fore and aft launchers. Once we have swarms of Mirandas and a few federations it won't be as much of an issue.

Disparage the Archer all you like, but it was so valuable Starfleet forked out a premium for another tranche after the warp 8 engine came out. We could do worse than build one with a warp 8 core, v4 nacelles and better weapons.
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Our wartime experience a decade ago says otherwise; you give up too much tactical performance on designs that will go in harms way, and we are still too warp core limited to afford many specialist ships
Especially when they cant defend themselves against even BoP-tier threat

The orb hullform's out until we have phaser strips as a weapon option in seventy years-ish
Instead we use a big saucer; heavy cruiser or explorer size plus one or two cargo pods
 
Tank man said:
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Franz Joseph's mortal sin was popularizing this 'rearrange the parts of one ship to create a bunch of "unique" designs' nonsense. It barely worked for the Constitution, it absolutely does not for the Excelsior.

Like, congratulations, you've created a ship that's so inefficient to traverse that it genuinely would probably be worth the expense and risk to just install transporter bays in each of the two hulls and beam the crew between them as needed.
 
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